If you skip to 4:50 you can see what happened after they cut off the live video. It looks brutal.

At one point Mady Hornig says "When you eat pepto bismo and yogurt, you're not ok" in response to one of her team members asking if she's all right.

I'm inspired to donate a little more to thank them for their sacrifice. They should have nominated Francis Collins as maybe he would consider donating a few of NIH's funds to help research.... Just kidding of course, I guess it's still all up to disabled patients and our supporters.

Well folks, they did this for us and our community. It's nice to have friends on our side, demonstrating their commitment to the community and the research. They could have easily ducked out of ME/CFS research and pursued something more scientifically glamorous with easier access to resources. But they've stuck with us. And now they got more resources to pursue further research.

If you skip to 4:50 you can see what happened after they cut off the live video. It looks brutal.

At one point Mady Hornig says "When you eat pepto bismo and yogurt, you're not ok" in response to one of her team members asking if she's all right.

Click to expand...

O...M...G

Our researchers shouldn't have to suffer like that on our behalf. I'll be happy for them to work a few overtime hours instead.

Next time let's think up something a little less painful, eh?

These are two amazing people, in many more ways than one. Many thanks to them for everything they've done for us... the research, the risk to their careers for taking on ME/CFS, the fund-raising. They don't come much better than this.

Where's our self-proclaimed dedicated supporter, Prof Wessely? Shall we call him out? Hey Wessely, want a habanero? Oh wait, he wouldn't want to support biomedical research, that would only encourage our false illness beliefs. Oh heck, if I can watch him eat a bunch of hot peppers, he can raise money for CBT/GET research. Better than him getting government funds for his crap research at least.

Would be good to do more to draw attention to this - maybe people got a bit distracted by the rituximab announcement at the same time? Thanks for all those working on it, and especially to Lipkin and Hornig.

It's interesting to note that chili peppers don't actually "burn" the tissues, rather the capsaicin they contain binds to the TRPV1 receptor (Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 1), which, in turn, starts the process by which the nerves transmit a burning sensation to brain. The body's response to this signal causes inflammation in the absence of actual physical injury.

Ironically, TRPV1 is one of the expressed genes that was found to be dysregulated in ME by Alan Light, et al.

In this recent video, Alan Light suggests that this dysregulation of TRPV1 may have something to do with the thermal dysregulation experienced by some ME patients.

I missed this. I was blindsided by my oven breaking down and the Rituximab paper but I've now taken a proper look at this. Awesome job by all those involved - well done. And special thanks of course to Hornig and Lipkin!
And thanks to whoever made that huge donation, that was awesome too and it's really going to make a difference to a lot of people's lives.

If you were nominated and you're reading this, then please help us by doing the challenge. It's a small thing that has an enormous positive impact which will last long after the chillie.